Baseball's So-Called 'National' Championship

June 29, 2011

ENLARGE

South Carolina's Robert Beary
Southcreek Global/Zuma Press

The winner of the College World Series is anointed the sport's "national champion." But considering how little of the nation is ever involved in college baseball's signature, eight-team event, maybe it's time to come up with a new designation.

Perhaps more than any other major NCAA sport, college baseball suffers from intense regionalism and a lack of parity. In the past 20 years, 79 of the 160 participating schools in the College World Series hailed from Florida, California and Texas. Eleven of the past 22 champions came from the Southeast, including the victor of this year's finals, South Carolina, as well as runner-up Florida. Meanwhile, no Big Ten team has reached the Series since Michigan in 1984.

College baseball is widespread—just not widely represented at the elite level. Forty-five states (plus the District of Columbia) have at least one Division I team, yet only 20 have appeared at the College World Series since 1992 (43.5%). That figure looks even worse when compared to other popular college sports, which have seemingly all done a better job at sharing the spoils.

Of the 41 states that have teams in the Football Bowl Subdivision, 29 have been represented the top eight of the final Associated Press poll in the last 20 years. Thirty-three states, plus D.C., have reached the Elite Eight of the NCAA men's basketball tournament during that span. Even in lacrosse and hockey—two extremely regionalized sports—a larger share of the participating states have found success than in baseball, where it's the same ones over and over again.

—Jared Diamond

In It, But Not to Win It

A look at how many states have had major-college teams finish among their sport's top eight, since 1992 (including D.C.)

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